Mending Friendship
by Julia Thorne aka SparklingD
Summary: Post-episode for Nesting dolls. Grissom and Catherine have a fight. How will they salvage their friendship? GC angst, and hints at GSR. This is not a GCR piece! chapter 2 up!
1. Default Chapter

**Author's notes**: Hi everyone, I'm SparklingDiamond over at the YTDAW boards. This is my first time publishing here. I started writing this fic because I really dislike the direction Catherine has taken as a character. She used to be good in the first couple of season, then she became Cath the Drama Queen and now what? Cath just-made-supervisor-and-already-abusing-of-power?

This comes from my wanting to believe that she acted in good faith and it was just a misunderstanding with Grissom, although I know that this is very unlikely and she's just a former good character with a newfound taste for power and money.

-

Loose cannon with a gun, and she's all yours. Of course she was. Who else did he have? He'd lost three valuable members of his team only to be left with a rookie and a stranger. Sara was his only anchor in his new team, and he knew it, as much as he'd never admit it.

For Catherine to just turn her back on him was unusual. He'd seen a weird glint in her eye when he'd confronted Ecklie.

_- What action are you taking, Grissom?_

_- Yeah, Grissom, what action are you taking?_

It was like she echoed his words, it was like in high school with a bully and his cronies. She'd said she was a bully in high school. Maybe she was making her way to become one again.

Speak of the devil. She peered in the doorway and he felt something he'd never felt before, with Catherine. Distrust. She was the closest thing to a friend he had, and now he felt like retreating in his shell and just shutting her out, pretending she wasn't there. That shouldn't happen with friends. He did the same with Sara, only for different reasons.

He went back to the formal work persona he forced himself to be, and coolly asked "What are you doing here?"

She shifted on her feet. "I have a question for you". He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head, not even motioning for her to sit. But she entered the room anyway, closing the door behind her (bad sign. It meant it was private.) and taking a seat right in front of him.

"It's about Sara", she said, and he knew he didn't want to have that conversation.

"If you're upset because she didn't apologize to you, I'll call her later and ask her to." He'd already thought about doing that, although he didn't really think that Sara had gone too far. But for the good of the lab it was wiser to apologize, because they'd have to work together many times in the future. Only, he couldn't believe that Catherine was insisting on something so trivial. It was really a matter of wounded pride on her side, and he found that a bit childish. Maybe if he spoke to Sara she would agree to being the mature one.

"It's not that. I want to know why you didn't fire her".

"I don't owe you any explanation. She's in my team. You have yours now."

He was even more surprised by his own words than Catherine was. They had just started talking and yet he was as angry as if they'd been arguing for hours. In fact, he did have some pent up anger that was surfacing all at once. And he knew why. What he said was right: Catherine had her own team now, was her own boss. It wasn't like he felt her as a rival, he didn't. What he found worrying was her sudden siding with Ecklie after a lifetime of dissing him just like everybody else in the lab did. Was Catherine that shallow? Was she that selfish? Had she become a suckup? Did she feel it was better to have the most powerful man in the lab on her side?

His musings were interrupted by a statement he never thought he would hear. If there was a top 10 sentences that Grissom was least likely to hear this could've easily been number one.

"I thought Ecklie was doing you a favor."

He let out a shrill "What?". A favor? Now where did that come from!

"I thought you didn't want Sara around anymore".

Grissom had not seen that coming. He wouldn't know where Catherine could get such an idea. How could he not want the only person in his team with whom he'd worked for more than just a few months? How could he not want the only person who, with Catherine gone, he'd have ever considered as his successor? How could he not want the… he didn't allow himself to even think that. He already had two other reasons which were more than enough. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

He took a second to collect his thoughts. What on earth had he let on for Catherine to think that he would've been better off without Sara? Had he behaved that coolly? Wasn't it Catherine who'd shown to intensely dislike Sara since day one? He thought he'd made it clear that he felt awkward in her presence and he felt very insecure in their strained personal and working relationship. He knew he wasn't the warmest of people, but for her to think he wanted Sara out of the picture was a big mistake, and it didn't matter that it was his ever changing behavior that had let Catherine to make assumptions. It was a mistake, period, a liberty she'd taken.

"Oh, you _thought_ I didn't want Sara around? So what, you _suggested_ Ecklie to fire her?" He could feel his rage mounting. _Sara_ had been accused of behaving inappropriately? Sara! And look at what _she_'d done! "Without even checking with me first? Don't you think that if I'd wanted her out, I'd have just fired her myself?"

Catherine was taken aback by his violent reaction, but she did have the perfect answer to that. "Whenever have you taken a position, Gil? No, I don't think you would've fired her anyway! You've never been determined like that, I thought you just needed a little shove! Just like that time you sent her a plant! You wouldn't have done it if I hadn't pushed you! That's what friends are for!"

"You've stopped being my friend, Catherine." The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. He realized at once that was what he felt, but it could've been said differently.

He could see that she was stricken. On the spur of the moment, he added "Now that you bring it up, that thing with the plant… that alone should've told you that I don't want Sara to go anywhere."

That was quite a confession on his part and she seemed genuinely surprised, but she didn't miss a beat.

"Oh yeah? I've stopped being your friend? And you wouldn't even try to fight to salvage a friendship? Whose fault is that, Gris? You never fight. You just accept everything so passively! How was I to know you were still interested in Sara? That's not what you showed me!"

"I never showed you anything, Catherine."

"That's exactly the point!"

"Now don't go blaming on me that you turned your back on your old team! You've seen that sucking up to Ecklie makes you popular. You're turning out to be just like him."

She bit her lip.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's notes:** Thanks everyone for the amazing reviews! They were very satisfying although I'm not used to all the expectation! I do like constructive criticism and I would like to ask those who said my Catherine is not in character if they can explain what exactly I did wrong in their opinion!

As usual please remember English is not my first language and I don't have a beta reader (I barely have a spell checker). There will probably be just one more part to this, and then maybe I'll write an alternate ending. Enjoy!

-

"An incompetent middle-aged man with a taste for bossing people around?"

"Not the part about being incompetent. And male."

"I can't believe you would think that! I've known you longer than 10 years!"

She's right, Gil, he told himself. She's your only friend. Don't fool yourself that you can always go and find new ones because you're way too old for that. Think about it for a moment – do you really want to end your longest lasting friendship? Your _only_ friendship? Still, Catherine does have her flaws, doesn't she? And maybe, just maybe, you would be a better friend if you told her she does, if you made her come back down to earth.

He just couldn't bring himself to calm down yet. He stood up.

"You may have known me for ten years, Catherine, but you're not _perfect_." He emphasized the word by spitting it out. "And don't say 'neither are you' because I know! I know it's never clear what I think. I know I'm no good at expressing feelings. I know! That still doesn't justify you acting like that."

She rose from her seat and moved defensively behind it. "You think I boss people around?"

"Have you given me reason to think otherwise? This thing with Sara is… it's just about power. You want to show who's in charge."

"And you don't?" She made an exasperated gesture with her hands.

"You tell me. All the years I've been supervisor, I don't think I've ever acted like you did today."

"You did reprimand Sara in front of everyone".

"Yes, and you complimented me on it later on".

"Gil, the truth is Sara does not accept authority. If I was as bossy as you say I am, I would constantly fight with Warrick and Nick, too."

He noticed that they were finally both calming down, so he said patiently "They're men, Catherine. You don't need to prove them anything. With Sara, you don't like the competition. You make it seem like she's confrontational, but the truth is, YOU are."

"She accused me of being partial to male suspects."

"That you are not. But Cath… everyone makes mistakes and you're no exception. You can't act all sanctimonious. If you were still in my team and Ecklie wanted me to fire you, how would you have felt if a colleague backed him up? Is that what you call solidarity? I call it ass kissing." He hoped his disappointment was showing. "I don't think that you want Sara out of the picture for _my_ sake."

"I don't have any problem with Sara." she repeated stubbornly. "I thought you did."

"Yes, I gathered that. I hope it's clear enough now that I very much want Sara to stay in the lab, on my team. And I very much want you to be a little less competitive and thirsty for power. It really bugs me to see you take sides with Ecklie only to be sure you're keeping your job."

It only occurred to him then what Ecklie had done to Sophia. He didn't know if there were any problems between them, but he was sure he'd demoted her for a reason, or more than one, not the least of which was her being honest about Gil's faults, or lack thereof. Integrity did not sit well with Ecklie.

Catherine sighed.


End file.
